Archives for May2013

COL Budanov was one of the very few military officers convicted of human rights violations during the Chechen Wars – a highly polarizing verdict that still sparks strong emotions throughout the region and all of Russia.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

30 April, 2013

A jury at the Moscow City Court has found Yusup Temerkhanov, an ethnic Chechen, guilty of the murder of former Russian Army Colonel Yury Budanov.

Temerkhanov’s lawyers say they will appeal the verdict.

In February, the court dismissed the previous jury, citing the “inability of some jurors to attend the process.”

The defendant’s lawyer insisted that the jury was dismissed to prevent it from acquitting his client.

Before the previous jury’s dismissal, a witness in the case had changed his description of the killer, saying the defendant did not look like the man who shot Budanov in 2011.

Budanov was killed in Moscow two years after his early release from prison, where he served time for killing an 18-year-old Chechen woman, Elza Kungayeva.

More problems surrounding the Sochi Olympics. Was he really poisoned, or is this to cover up a major embezzlement of funds, or both? Thoughts?

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

April 29, 2013, by Claire Bigg

“Hardly a month goes by in Russia without a fresh scandal hitting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The latest blow came from Akhmed Bilalov, a disgraced former deputy head of Russia’s Olympic Committee, fired in February after being publicly upbraided by President Vladimir Putin for huge cost overruns and a two-year delay in the construction of the Sochi ski jump.

On April 27, Bilalov claimed that he was suffering from mercury poisoning after being exposed to the toxic substance at his Moscow office.

“They have found elevated levels of mercury in my body,” he told the Interfax news agency. “I didn’t want to announce this before, but now that the press has found out I’m forced to confirm it.”